


Old Friends and Ill-Advised Aliases

by soufflegirl91



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Finish This February, Humour, M/M, Q is so done, Sorry Not Sorry, gratuitous Roald Dahl references, grumpy Q is grumpy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soufflegirl91/pseuds/soufflegirl91
Summary: Q was less than happy at the prospect of joining 007 on a mission in Singapore. His mood was not improved when he found out they'd be attending a fancy reception with some of Bond's old Navy chums. And when he saw the alias one of his minions thought was a good idea for a joke? Well, that was just the icing on the cake.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 12
Kudos: 194
Collections: MI6 Cafe Collections





	Old Friends and Ill-Advised Aliases

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for the MI6 Cafe's Finish This February challenge, for which there are three openings to choose from and the writer has to complete the fic. I chose prompt B.
> 
> A thousand thank yous as always to Christinefromsherwood and Celyan for the beta work and hand-holding on this one. I would never post anything without their wonderful support.

A loud burst of laughter from the center of the ballroom made Q raise his eyes from his phone.

Yup. There he was. In his dress uniform. Blue eyes laughing. Ears flying wild. With Cdr. Bubble-Butt and Lt. Look-At-My-Biceps. Old shipmates.

Q looked back at his phone. He’d never liked these stuffy parties. He liked his phone. And writing code. You could depend on code. Code was something you could trust. Code was reliable. Even when it didn’t behave exactly how you wanted, you only needed a bit more patience and there it was. Perfect. Reliable. Good. Q liked coding. He enjoyed writing code. Coding had always been good to him. Coding had never made him want to run away and be a hermit in Nepal far away from expenditure approval forms. Yes, this was an excellent code he was writing right now.

It was only a shame that the code he was writing right now was work-related and that he couldn’t _currently_ hack into Biceps and Bubble-Butt’s phones, social media and email accounts to remove all traces of them ever knowing _his_ agent. 

There would be time for that later. Q would see to it. 

He was so busy mentally planning the clever algorithm he would use to find and delete any mention of James Bond from all of their accounts that he didn’t notice the trio approaching. 

The sound of a throat clearing far too close for comfort made Q look up. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said eloquently. 

Bond just smiled at him in that effortlessly charming way of his. It made Q want to punch that beautiful smile right off his face. 

“Always a wallflower, eh, Q?” Bond’s smile widened into a grin and Q mentally promised to infect all of his porn with a virus that played Uptown Funk over every video. “Let me introduce you to some old colleagues of mine.” 

Q sighed quietly, pocketing his phone and turning his attention to Bond’s fellow Naval officers. He already knew who they were, of course - he’d made sure to find out everything he could about everyone invited to the reception at the British High Commission - but they had to maintain the charade. 

“Q, this is Commander Charles Bletchley-Bingham and Lieutenant Matthew Lincoln. Charlie and I were at Naval College together. Matt started out as an Enlisted Seaman under my command. They’re stationed together here in Singapore” 

Good lord, could Bubble-Butt _be_ any more of an entitled rich prick?! 

“Charlie, Matt, this is my colleague Quentin Blake. Q makes sure I don’t blow up every computer I touch.” 

“Not an easy task, I assure you,” Q replied, shaking hands with the relics of Bond’s past. 

Laughter all around, _ha ha, isn’t this fun_ . Q’s smile felt so wooden he was practically Pinocchio. When he found out which of his minions had come up with this alias, he was going to reassign them to Baskerville. _Permanently._

“Any relation to the illustrator?” 

Oh look, he even _sounded_ like an entitled rich prick! 

Q tried to remember whether ‘Charlie’s’ file had said Eton or Harrow. No matter, they were both the same to anyone who didn't grow up in those circles. 

“No relation. My parents just happened to be big fans of Roald Dahl. I suppose I’m lucky they didn’t call me anything worse.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bond smoothly interjected with a grin that Q just _knew_ meant something terrible was about to come out of the agent’s mouth. “I think Willy Wonka Blake has quite the ring to it.” 

Q glowered.

Bond smirked.

Bond’s former colleagues tittered. 

“If only I really _could_ invent an everlasting gobstopper,” Q mused aloud, “I might finally get some peace and quiet when you’re around.” 

The tittering evolved into guffawing, and it was Q’s turn to smirk. Bond acknowledged the joke with a laughing nod. 

There followed the usual kind of stilted small talk that came about when only one person in the conversation knew all parties, and the others weren’t sure what to make of each other. This time, it was punctuated with Roald Dahl references. Q took them on the chin with grace, all the while plotting the many ways that he would make Alias Minion’s life hell _before_ reassigning them to Baskerville. Maybe he would see if there really was a way to make gum that would turn the chewer into a blueberry… or “accidentally” almost-drown them in a bowl of melted chocolate… or conveniently arrange a goose and/or squirrel attack... 

Bletchley-Bingham and Lincoln (Q couldn’t in good conscience continue thinking of them as Bubble-Butt and Biceps when they were _right there_ , but he couldn’t bring himself to think of them as ‘Charlie’ and ‘Matt’ - that was too much like acknowledging that Bond was really _James_ , and he couldn’t allow himself to do that on a mission) certainly seemed happy enough to share embarrassing stories about Bond’s Naval exploits, which Q mentally filed away for future reference. Most of Q’s own embarrassing Bond-related stories were too classified for even these Naval officers, but then he remembered there _was_ one he could share…

“Tell me,” Q began lightly, “does James have a history of attempting to murder innocent pets, or is that a new development?” 

Bond’s back straightened, and he looked at Q curiously, though whether that was because of the question or the use of Bond’s first name was anyone’s guess. 

“No history that I remember. Why, has our James taken to kicking puppies in his old age?” 

Bond chuckled.

Q bristled. 

_How dare_ Lincoln call Bond _“our James”_ ?! And Q was the only person allowed to call Bond old! It was _their thing_! 

“Nothing so violent as that, don’t worry,” Q breezed on, baring his teeth in a smile. “The first time James met my cats, he nearly killed them.”

Bond’s chuckle turned into a surprised bark of genuine laughter. Q tried to push down the swell of pride that he felt at the sound, Bond’s genuine laughter was a rare, precious commodity. 

“Now, Q, you know it wasn’t on purpose.” 

Bond rocked into Q a little, nudging Q’s shoulder with his own and giving him a fond grin. Q smiled softly, despite his previous attempt to embarrass Bond. He fancied that he could still feel a phantom tingle where their shoulders had brushed. 

“Maybe not on purpose,” Q conceded, turning his attention back to the two strangers from Bond’s past. “James was dropping me home after a long... day at work. I was practically asleep on my feet, so being the good friend that he is, James escorted me up to my flat.” 

Actually, it had been after a 72-hour comms marathon trying to keep 003 alive and sane after she’d been kidnapped and thrown in a sensory deprivation chamber in Mumbai. The idiots hadn’t noticed the discreet earpiece, so they had never lost track of her, but it had taken that long to coordinate a team to neutralise the threat and get her out of there. Q had been ready to take a catnap on the sofa in his office before braving the commute home, but suddenly Bond had been there to chivvy him out of the door and into his car. 

It was the first time Bond had driven him home, but not the last.

“Only, being half-asleep, Q forgot to warn me that he had _pets_ ,” James continued smoothly while Q pulled himself back from his thoughts. “So there I am, trying to keep this semi-comatose boffin upright _and_ find the bloody light switch, when there’s a moving shadow in the hallway.” 

“Poor James,” Q soothed in his most obviously facetious tone, “trying to keep me safe from the big, bad housecat. Thankfully, I was awake enough to stop him from going on the attack. Not that he would have won. Carrot is bloody vicious when he wants to be.” 

Laughter all around. The idea of James Bond being beaten by a _cat_ was clearly very amusing to his old friends. 

_They_ hadn’t seen the scratches after the first time Bond had stayed the night. Carrot had _not_ been impressed to find someone else in Q’s bed. 

Cheery, the little sweetheart, had taken to Bond immediately. Q was vaguely concerned that she liked Bond better than she liked him these days. 

The sound of his phone beeping drew both Q and Bond’s attention. Time to get moving.

“Would you excuse us a moment? I need to call and check in with the Grand High Witch, and she’ll no doubt want to check in with James, too.” 

Bletchley-Bingham and Lincoln waved them off, turning their attention back to the room in search of new conversation.

“You know, Q, if Moneypenny finds out that you called her the Grand High Witch, she’ll have you strung up by the toes.” 

“Who says I was talking about Moneypenny? I could have been referring to M.” 

They both snorted at the image of Gareth Mallory with a bald head and talons as they slipped away from the crowds and through a door marked No Entry. 

“And the gobstopper thing?” Bond smirked flirtatiously. 

“James, if I wanted to shut you up, I can think of better things to put in your mouth than sweets. _After_ we finish this mission.”

Bond grinned, like his namesake when faced with a giant peach.

“Quartermaster, you have the _best_ ideas.” 


End file.
